Traditionally, computer systems are designed to customarily and separately handle different processing tasks. For example, central processing units (CPU) are designed to handle general purpose processes, graphics processing units (GPU) are designed to handle graphics-related processes, and digital signal processing units (DSP) are designed to handle digital signal computational processes.
Further, as the operating power consumption of individual components of a typical computer system creep upwards, the power budget of such a system has become tighter. It is now becoming a challenge to design a computer system to simultaneously achieve various high performance goals, such as high computing power, compactness, quietness, better battery performance, etc. For example, portable computer systems, such as laptop computers, have a limited battery output capability; and thus a given battery output capability may limit a system from performing at a continuous high performance capability with dedicated processing units for certain computational processes.
Traditional power management systems rely heavily on throttling to manage power consumption. Virtually all power management systems employ reduction of process performance, in one form or another, in order to reduce power consumption. The reduction in power consumption is achieved by selecting different states of operation (e.g. frequency and operating voltage of main processor) depending upon the desired state of the system; for example, if reduced power consumption is desired, the main processor is operated at a reduced frequency and is supplied a reduced operating voltage. These states of different frequencies and voltages are preselected when a system is designed; in other words, a designer of a system selects hardware components and designs software to provide these different states when a system is built with these components and software. When such a system is operating, the system changes state based upon a user setting (e.g. the user has selected battery operation).